June 2016

May 31, 2008

Was all geared up to go to the Sex and the City movie this afternoon until she found out through Fandango that every ticket for every showing in every theater in Washington D.C. was sold out. She was dressed up and everything. We thought the disappointment might kill her. But she's made of sterner stuff than we are and didn't drop like a stone to the floor and strike it repeatedly with her hands and feet. Hell, she didn't even snivel. Meanwhile we were kind of overjoyed because we were supposed to go with her and knew we'd be the only male in the theater and rather than being looked upon by the women in the theater as a sensitive and caring significant other we'd be looked upon as an ineffectual sensitive guy of the "Lesbian Seagull" sort who plays an acoustic guitar and likes the songs of Christopher Cross, not that anybody remembers Christopher Cross anymore. But to be honest we were also a bit disappointed because after years of watching and half-watching and even quarter-watching episodes of the show we sorta kinda fell in love with the show, although we could have done without the kiddie-pool-shallow narrative musings of Sarah Jessica Parker, which invariably make us cringe and turn to professional wrestling just to prove to ourselves we haven't been completely and utterly wimpified by the estrogen emitted by this most estronomical of all TV programs.

Anyway, guess we'll go next week. Unless we get lucky and Washington is destroyed in a natural disaster or a manmade disaster, we're not picky.

The tuba was not patented until 1835. Hence Genghis Khan never played the tuba. Nor was a tuba amongst the possessions of Jesus Christ sold at a lawn sale at St. Paul's house on January 17, AD 34. Tragically, his death at age65 in 1834 prevented German theologian Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher from ever picking up the largest and lowest pitched of the brass instruments. As his wife noted later, "He was this close."

Is considered a classic in the genre of blurry paintings of something on fire. Claude Monet, whose lack of blurry fire painting skills reduced him to lame painting of soggy waterlilies, said "If I could have painted blurry paintings of something on fire, I'd have never gotten within 5,000 feet of a waterlily." As for Turner, he was always humble about his gift. "Painting blurry paintings of something on fire came naturally to me. Personally, I'd have preferred to paint other things. Although not waterlilies, like that pussy Monet."

Fireman Bob raced into the burning house. Some people are born to be heroes and Fireman Bob was not one of them. There was not a soul in the house to save and the fire was in an ashtray. Fireman Bob lived to be ninety-eight and it became harder and harder for him to avoid the Bible. You get up in years and the Bible sidles up to you and whispers shiny lies in your ear. Fireman Bob may have never saved a life but he walked the halls of the nursing home spoiling for a fight, swearing like a house on fire. You can either pull your years behind you like a sled or push them in front of you like a shopping cart loaded with bricks but either way they're heavy like a column of regret. Everybody Fireman Bob had loved in this life was ashes in Fireman Bob's mouth. But Fireman Bob stood his ground and made his stand and dared man or god or fire to take him down. And this is why we admire Fireman Bob and why we know it's possible to keep one's dignity in the darkest shamefulness of the human sewer. You don't have to save a soul to carry yourself like a horse. It's enough to stand at the nursing home window shaking your fist in the nose of the Lord.

He forgot to study and the test got postponed. He fell asleep behind the wheel and drove through a muddy field and straight into a car wash, where he woke up. He watched Jeopardy and almost half the time scored higher than the TV winner. He had witnesses. He built a castle out of Jujubes and was running across the beach to show it to his friends but he tripped and the jujube castle fell into the sand and when he picked it all the sand stuck to the Jujubes and just then a famous art collector happened past and declared him a genius. All he had to do was put a popcorn shrimp to his mouth and women called him fascinating. He picked up the guitar and within three weeks he was playing in the third-best reggae band in Tucson, Arizona. He had lots of Senegalese friends. All he had to do was walk into a bakery and the person behind the counter would put a half-price sign on the fresh banana muffins, which were his favorite kind. It hardly ever rained on the days he planned to play golf. He found small change on the street practically every day. People actually found his beetle collection interesting. The sunny side of the street changed depending on which side of the street he was on. He could go into a bookstore and find you an upbeat Thomas Hardy novel. Brakes never went bad on him. His dog was oddly flea-proof. Give him a watermelon, and he would find a pearl in it.

You can leave your hat on your head put your nose to the truth throw your wrist through the roof put your tooth to good use cast your eye to the rye but you cannot, we repeat you cannot, ride the tiger in the basement after 5 o'clock.

May 30, 2008

Dear Baby Hitler: Why did you invade Russia in the summer of 1941? Why? Why? "Marty" from Buenos Aires

Dear Marty: What the second-guessers tend to forget is that I'd already conquered Poland, France, the Low Countries, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Greece, and a couple of counties in southcentral Pennsylvania. What was I supposed to do for an encore? Go electric? Jump up and down on Oprah Winfrey's sofa? I found myself in the same position as Michael Jackson after Thriller. How was he going to top that? The Victory Tour? Captain EO? He probably should have quit while he was ahead. And the same goes for me. But we're the same, Michael and I. We're dancers.

Dear Baby Hitler: Is it true you planned to supersize Berlin and rename it Germania? Rick, Oberlin College

Dear Rick: Yes. Everything in Germania was going to be giant. The public buildings were going to be giant. The stadiums were going to be giant. Even the schnauzers were going to be giant. The giant schnauzers of Germania were going to live for a thousand years! It would have been the duty of the citizens of Germania to follow these giant schnauzers with giant poop bags to clean up the giant poop. Albert Speer was continually trying to talk me out of the giant schnauzers. I would say, "Albert, one day you will see I was right. Build me the schnauzers, and giant clippers to trim their toenails, and leave the rest up to me."

Dear Baby Hitler: Is Mein Kampf available as an audio book? Maria, Linz

Dear Maria: It certainly is. I highly recommend it. Howie Mandel reads it and I think he does a bang-up job.

A remote tribe of previously uncontacted Amazonian Indians has been photographed from the air holding signs reading "Leave Britney Alone!" Says Paul Venal of the TMZ Web site, "These people are so behind on the gossip front it's heinous."

The Federal Bureau of Investigations has issued a nationwide alert warning citizens to be on the lookout for a man who thinks he's Jerry Garcia. According to FBI spokesperson Deborah Fry, the FBI intervened in the case after police in jurisdictions across the nation received phone calls from people who saw the Jerry-Garcia-like man carrying a Jerry-Garcia-like acoustic instrument and became afraid he would buttonhole them and play something from Terrapin Station.

Fry cautioned citizens to stay in their homes. However, she also admitted that the FBI has received no validated reports of the individual actually claiming to be Jerry Garcia, and hence no laws have been broken. "This individual certainly looks like he thinks he's Jerry Garcia," said Fry. "So we're proceeding on the assumption that he really thinks he's Jerry Garcia. One would think that if this individual didn't think he was Jerry Garcia he would change his appearance, which is frightening the willies out of people who are afraid of being ear-raped by "Alabama Getaway.""

According to Fry, the agency suspects the Garcia-like individual is being sheltered by and receiving free bong hits from gullible Deadheads. She concluded that "We're waiting for this guy to mess up. If he so much as plays the opening chords to "Truckin," we'll be all over him like tie-dye on a hippie."